


Receipts

by surlybobbies



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, dean shouldn't snoop but does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 08:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8005501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surlybobbies/pseuds/surlybobbies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(A winner in destieldrabbledaily's 30k Fanfic Contest!)</p><p>He’s about to put the receipt down, no harm done, when something about it catches his eye.  Pen ink, on the back.  He flips it around and reads:</p><p>  <i>With Dean.  He shared his pie with me.  His smile was radiant.</i><br/> </p><p>Dean stares.  Reads it again.  Nothing’s changed.  </p><p>What?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Receipts

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fifth-place winner of destieldrabbledaily's 30k fanfic contest! It was the first contest I'd ever entered, so I'm super excited to have placed!
> 
> Enjoy - and you can find me on Tumblr at surlybobbies. :)

Dean walks into Cas’s room, holding his phone to his ear.  “How the hell am I supposed to know where you put it, Cas?  I’m never in your room, which, can I just say, is a goddamn pigsty - “

As he listens to Cas’s slightly indignant reply, he wanders over to Cas’s desk, where rumpled pieces of paper litter the surface in a semicircle.  Out of curiosity, he picks one up.  It’s a receipt dated a few months ago for two bacon cheeseburgers at some diner in Minnesota.  Dean shifts his phone from his ear and places it on speaker.  

“-be right near the lamp on my bedside table - “

“Hey, Cas?”

“Did you find it?”

“Nah, but uh - why do you have so many old receipts?”

There’s silence.

“Cas?  You still there?”

On the line, someone clears his throat.  “Uh, yes.  I’m still here.”

“So?  The receipts?  I mean, it’s cool, but it doesn’t really make sense.  We’re not exactly paying taxes, buddy.”

There’s another pause, just a little too long to be innocent.  Finally, Cas says, “No reason.  Now, can you please look for my cell phone?  Sam says you’re a waste of his minutes.”

“Tell him he’s an asshole,” Dean says, rolling his eyes.  “I’ll text him if I find it.”

Cas hangs up.  Dean pockets his phone and casts an eye over the messy desk, where still more receipts are spread out.  Something compels him to pick up another one, cleaner and less rumpled than the rest.  It’s only a few weeks old, from a diner Dean and Cas visited on the way back from a particularly rough hunt.  Two more burgers, two cokes, and one slice of apple pie.  Dean smiles.  Cas had ordered him the apple pie.

He’s about to put the receipt down, no harm done, when something about it catches his eye.  Pen ink, on the back.  He flips it around and reads: 

_With Dean.  He shared his pie with me.  His smile was radiant._

Dean stares.  Reads it again.  Nothing’s changed.  

What?

He flips over another one.   _With Sam and Dean.  I don’t know why they keep insisting on buying me a meal when they know I don’t eat.  It’s probably so Dean has an excuse to eat more.  I don’t mind.  It’s an excuse to stay._

Dean’s throat has gotten all scratchy.  He clears it as he sits heavily on Cas’s bed, flipping through the rest of the receipts, catching snippets of Cas’s commentary: _Sam lost a lot of blood today; Dean made him eat his leftovers._

 _Dean made me try a bite of his pie today, but he wouldn’t let me hold the fork._  

_Sam keeps smiling at me whenever Dean talks to me.  I noticed long before, but it was particularly obvious today._

_Dean looked tired today.  He barely ate.  I want… I just want._

He’s so caught up with reading, with running his fingers over the words he’s never heard Cas say, with trying to swallow down the lump in his throat, that he doesn’t notice how long he sits there.

An hour must pass before he hears a creak as the door swings open, and then a mortified stuttering as Cas takes in the scene.

“Dean, what - that’s, that is to say, it’s - “ He takes a deep breath and hangs his head, breathing deeply.  When he looks back up, there’s a determined set to his jaw.  “Dean,” he repeats, more strongly, “You were never meant to see those.  I apologize if they make you uncomfortable, but you shouldn’t have gone through them.”  His fingers are white where they grip the doorknob, and the clench of his jaw is swathed in pink.

The nervous heat rolling in Dean’s gut rises to his neck.  “I get it,” he says, swallowing and looking down at the receipts, smoothed and stacked on the bed where his hands had pressed them disbelievingly into the mattress.  “Sorry.”  

There’s a tense minute of quiet.  Dean doesn’t look up, just reads the last one he saw over and over with an increasing sense that he’s been missing out on something that he’s never known he needed: _With Dean.  He kept flirting with the waitress.  I understand now - what this is that I feel.  I’ve known for years that I love Dean as a friend, but I know now that there is more to this than just friendship.  I love him.  I love him more than heaven itself.  And I’ll make that choice if I have to._

And he did.  He gave up his grace and took up residence across the hall from Dean and brushes his teeth and hates broccoli and does human things - he made that choice.  For Dean.

Dean decides, right at this moment, that he can make a choice too.

“For the record,” Dean says eventually, more softly than he intends, “They don’t - I’m not uncomfortable.”

When he gathers the courage to look up, Cas’s face is unreadable.  They stare at each other.

Eventually Cas breaks his gaze.  He lets the door shut quietly behind him as he walks to the bed, where he sits and stares at the receipts between them.

He picks one up and chuckles at it.  “‘ _I’m never eating gas station sushi again_ ,’” he reads.  “ _If Dean weren’t here, I suppose I’d be passed out from dehydration over a toilet.”_

Dean surprises himself.  He opens his mouth.  “Not the most romantic one of the bunch,” he says, voice rough.  “I prefer the one about me flirting with the waitress.”

There’s another pause where they look at each other over the stacked receipts.  A bloom of red appears high on Cas’s cheeks.   _Yes_ , Dean wants to say, _I know that you love me now._

He feels manic.

“On the contrary,” Cas finally says, calculatingly casual, testing the waters, “the way you brought me Gatorade every half hour was very romantic.  You even served it in a mug.”

Dean snorts.  The manic has made its way into his blood and he trembles with it.  “What are we - what are we talking about, Cas?” he asks, and is only half surprised to hear his voice crack.

Cas ducks his head, smiling softly.  He begins gathering up the receipts.  “I’ll talk about anything with you, Dean,” he says quietly.  “Anything you want.”

“Is that why you never mentioned the things on these receipts?” Dean asks, pausing Cas’s motions with a touch to his wrist.  “Because you didn’t think I would ‘want’ it?”

“Partly,” Cas admits.

“Well, I - that’s not true,” Dean says, his grip loose on Cas’s wrist.  “I think - I do want it.  So tell me about it.”

Cas’s look is wide-eyed, too hopeful for Dean to bear.  “Dean?”

Dean ducks his head.  “Tell me about the receipts,” he repeats, and closes his eyes against Cas’s startled stare.

He hears Cas exhale, feels the jump of Cas’s pulse in his wrist.  “After - after Naomi, I wanted - I wanted to make sure I remembered.  Everything.  The times I spent with you and Sam specifically - not just to salvage information but because - because I wanted to remember how I felt around you.  How I feel.  The receipts are - just in case someone steals those moments from me again.  And I - “ He releases a frustrated breath and changes the topic.  “Dean, what do you mean when you say you want it?”

“Cas.”

“ _What do you mean, Dean?_ ”  Cas’s voice borders on desperate, shaking with nervous energy.

Dean grips Cas’s wrist, trails his fingers across Cas’s palm.  “I mean I shouldn’t have flirted with that waitress.”

Cas’s lips part.

“I mean I shouldn’t have wasted so much time,” Dean breathes, leaning in.  

Cas’s fingers brush lightly against Dean’s jaw.  His eyes are wide.  They shine.  “Is this real?”

“God, I hope so,” Dean says, feeling his voice tremble.  He kisses Cas, just the warm press and slide of his lips against Cas’s, then another and another -

They kiss until Cas draws back, lips parted, eyes manic.  The hand fisted in Dean’s shirt is full of crumpled receipts.  “I suppose you know that I’m in love with you,” Cas says solemnly.  

Dean’s smile is - as Cas would probably describe it - radiant.  He hides it in Cas’s neck.  “And I love you,” he says helplessly into Cas’s collar.  “And I’ll remind you every goddamn day if I need to.”

 


End file.
